


My Vengeance Upon the Dust

by Kayliana



Category: The Following
Genre: #savethefollowing, Bromance to Romance, F/M, Joe Lives, M/M, eventual slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 19:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4112248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayliana/pseuds/Kayliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fight never ends, but Ryan isn't as alone as he thinks... STORY FOR A CAUSE: #SAVETHEFOLLOWING. Spoilers s1-3. Joe & Ryan bromance, eventual Joe/Ryan slash (can be read as gen, for now). Background Max/Mike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Vengeance Upon the Dust

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Full disclosure: there is a real story here, but I literally just started it in order to share the #savethefollowing movement with even more dedicated fans.  
> Please use Twitter to ask @netflix to #savethefollowing by renewing #thefollowing for a 4th season.  
> A/N2: Now onto the actual story notes :) First scene picks up shortly after s3ep10, Evermore. In my head canon Joe totally faked the execution with the help of some surviving followers, and the first few chapters of this story will be glimpses of where Joe is during the final episodes of season 3. Then there will be a time skip to the end of s3.  
> SPOILERS FOR SEASONS 1-3. Joe and Ryan bromance, eventual Joe/Ryan slash, background Max/Mike. A few OC baddies, but they won’t be paired with anyone and they won’t take over the story. It's a bit rough, and might have a few realism issues, but just roll with it :) More notes as this develops.  
> Title is from Poe’s Narrative of A. Gordon Pym :)

Darkness and discomfort greet Joe Carroll when he groans and blinks open his eyes inside the body bag. Joe's head feels heavy and his mind feels encased in molasses, and the first half-coherent thought that surfaces is that it actually worked. He lets out a relieved sigh and smiles into the darkness.

Seven people had accompanied Joe to the execution chamber, and three of them were among his surviving Followers. Jeffrey, the guard who held onto his arm all the way to the chamber. Aaron, the nurse who inserted the IV and switched out the drugs with a cocktail of heavy sedatives that slowed the heart enough to imitate death. And Lloyd, the nurse who took Joe's pulse and confirmed his death to the audience. They were some of his less conspicuous followers, long ago placed in the prison in case of eventualities such as these.

It was simple, really. Switch out the drugs, make a show of dying in front of an audience until he slips into unconsciousness, then have lovely dreams about Ryan while Lloyd does the rest of the work. The plan was for Lloyd to put Joe in a body bag, load him in a van supposedly bound for the crematory, then administer the counter-drugs and send off a replacement corpse in Joe's stead.

It was a dangerous plan and there was always a chance Joe wouldn't survive it, which was why he went to such lengths to get Ryan to finally open his eyes and stop denying their connection. If the escape plan didn't work, at least his legacy would live on in a Ryan un-blinded to the truth of himself, of them. If the plan worked, excellent—he could call on Ryan later and the two of them could disappear together.

It seems the plan has worked brilliantly—he can tell he's in a vehicle by the grasp of inertia pulling him slightly one way or the other whenever there's a curve in the road. Joe assumes Lloyd left him in the body bag in case the prison guards inspected the van on the way out, or in case the van got pulled over by the police for any reason, but it's uncomfortable and the air is stifling. Joe reaches up, feels along the seam of the zipper to the top, then patiently works it open enough to get his finger out and reach for the zip.

Except there are two of them, with a padlock looped through their holes locking Joe inside. That was not part of the plan.

The van slows, it's wheels crunching over gravel for-Joe counts-eighty seconds before coming to a stop. A garage door opens with a racket, and the van pulls inside.

The van's door slides open, and someone climbs in and tugs the body bag towards the door.

Joe clears his raspy throat and says, "Is there a bloody reason you had to lock me in here? Lloyd!"

There's a slow clacking of high-heels against the garage floor, and a female voice says, "Lloyd's a little dead right now. And we couldn't have you getting away, now could we?"

Well, shit. Joe blinks, then puts an equal amount of charm and malice into his voice when he says, "With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

The voice returns clearer and closer to the body bag; "You can call me Eliza."

"And what, precisely, do you want with me, Eliza?"

"It's not about what I want," she says in a smug, lazy tone.

Joe waits for more, but she doesn't elaborate.

"Then who?" Joe asks.

"You'll find out soon enough," she says, and her smug voice makes him want to cut her tongue out and feed it to her. Later perhaps, once he's out of this bloody body bag.

"Knock him back out and get him ready," Eliza orders.

A rough hand grabs one of his legs and holds it still, then a needle jabs through the plastic and into his thigh. Definitely not part of the plan.

His last thought before slipping back into unconsciousness is that Ryan thinks he's dead. Ryan won't be saving him. He won't even know that he needs to.

**Author's Note:**

> Note 2-15-16: I might eventually continue this, but it'll probably be a while...


End file.
